It was a wonderful day for a race. My wife, her friend Kathryn and I ran the Gasparilla Half Marathon this morning. I had signed up to be their pacer. They had both recently run the Disney World Half Marathon and were shooting to break 2 hours. I had very little doubt that they would be able to do this. The race started (not so) bright and early and 6:00 am with the air only slightly chilly. Kathryn's husband Chuck drove us all down there so it was very low stress to get there. We lined up a little too far back from where we should have been but it was hard to get farther up in line. There were a little more than 3000 people between the half and full marathon. The race started and we started shuffling forward. It took 1:50 to cross the start mats. We somewhat got onto pace with 9:27 for the first mile. Next mile was on pace, with maybe a few seconds gained back. It was a nice run around Davis island, passing along the airfield at MacDill AFB as we looped back towards the north of the island. At about mile 5 it was getting light out. It was turning to be a very beautiful morning. Jenny and Kathryn did great sticking with me although they did grumble a bit when we had to pick up the pace after hitting the water stops. I really wanted them to both make their goals but there was not a lot I could do other than try and run as steady as possible. Coming across the half way mark I saw we were between right on pace and a few seconds ahead. We picked up the pace slightly as we approached Bayshore Blvd. which was an out and back section of the course. By about 9 miles we were ahead even a little bit more. Kathryn needed to make a pit stop so I stayed with her while Jenny went on ahead. Kathryn and I ran on for almost another mile, catching back up from the lost time. She made one more stop and told me to go catch up to Jenny. So, I picked it up and after a few minutes I caught back up to Jenny. She was doing great, having picked up still more time. We were a bit worried about Kathryn but then we saw her just after we hit the turn around, she looked to be in good shape so I did not go back for her. With the 1:50 that it took us to cross the start I had to calculate our actual pace which is always harder to do while running. I did not want to mess things up with another math error. But, when I saw the pace clock at mile 11 it said 1:40. With 20 minutes left to do 2.1 miles without adjusting for the start time I knew we were in good shape. Jenny showed no signs of slowing down. She thought she was slowing down. She wasn't wearing the Garmin so I told her she was more than on pace and just to keep going. We wanted to cross the finish line together but with about 100 yards left to run she took off on a final kick and I almost lost her. My Garmin time showed 1:57:01 but I knew that I had started it just before the start mats and stopped it just after we crossed. So we were later pleased to find out that her time was actually 1:56:54. We were hoping that Kathryn did not fall back too badly, didn't hit a bad patch and give up and walk. Well, she did not, she hung in there and made her goal with a 1:58:49. I can't take much credit for the hard work that they did but I was glad to be able to help out. And, it was a really great morning to run and enjoy being out for a tour of Tampa! Way to go Jenny and Kathryn! Jenny: old PR: new PR:
2:10:47 1:56:54 Kathryn: old PR: new PR:
2:05:32 1:58:49
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